Carolee Bennett –> poet. artist. crankypants.
i hadn’t anticipated being so tired. except for some upkeep of my running routine and walking between buildings on campus, we — quite literally — were “butts in chairs.” i didn’t realize how exhausting that could be, but we were immersed in the work for 6-7 hours/day, with time spent on reading and writing assignments additional.
he shared it as an example of how “great poetry marvels at the world.” it occurs to me i’ve spent a lot of time lamenting this or that relationship, this or that loss, in my poems. there’s still room for that, certainly, but i’m interested in opening them up a bit more.
when i returned to poetry in my early 30s, i used strange images and took lots of leaps. for some reason, especially the last 2-3 years when i’ve really been struggling with new material, i lost track of that playfulness. i developed some other skills — better line breaks and use of sound — so it wasn’t all time wasted. but what’s come out of the workshops (both the instruction and the critique) is a reminder to be playful again, to bring sexy back (ha ha).